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Pumpkintail's Guide: How To Make an Awesome OC
A/N This is actually my last guide, and I asked Rainy to delete most of my guides but the first one. Also warning, this will be a long chapter. Also whenever I say realistic, I mean Warriors standarts realistic. Chapter One: Creating an OC First step is to create an OC. By the way, OC stands for Original Character. Choose color, eye color, pattern, markings of different color, etc. You have to stay somewhat realistic, however. Do NOT make your chat purple or green. Cats can have pinkish tint in warriors, but do not go further. Also, do not make cats just blue. Always call them blue-gray. Always. As for patterns, most usual are tabby stripes, mottles, speckles/spots, dapples or brindles. But what stops you from making your own patterns? But once again, stay realistic. Do not make give your cat a pattern like hearts or squares or something to make your cat "kawaii". As for eye color, for the love of God, stay realistic! I think it is okay to give character purple eyes, but only because two cats were mistakenly described with them. But only if you don't give it big role. Don't make cats go to your character and say "oh look your eyes are so awesome!", because that is a common Mary-Sue trait. Just like changing eye color. So please, do not do that. But that is not all! Markings usually consist of white paws, chest, underbelly, you get the idea. Of course you can make different colors but one of my pet peeves are black markings (black paws, tail tip, muzzle, etc.). Same goes for random color. Don't give a ginger tabby blue paws. Now, special markings. That consists of different colored tail, patches of different color and similar. Again, please stay aware of constrasts. While some can make your cat interesting, some can make your cat plain ugly. And finally, size and special "deformations". These come in many shapes, such as twisted paws, torn ears, broken jaws, small ears, stubby tails, short tails, lost eyes, tails lost completely, face missing, etc. etc. I think it's needless to say, do not give your cat way too many of these. Chapter Two: Names Step two - right name for your OC. There is a lot of factors you can name your cat after: Patterns - Is your cat tortoiseshell? Are her patches special-shaped? Name them after it! For example, name a spotted cat Dappleheart for example. Or name a striped cat Streakpelt. Canon example: Blossomfall (named after petal-shaped white patches). Markings - If your cat has a heart-shaped black patch on their forehead, you can name her -heart or something. If it has black neck, name it Blackthroat or so. Canon examples: Whitethroat (named after white chest), Archeye (named after thick stripe over his eye). Colors - The lamest thing you can name your cat after is their color. You can name them Graypelt or Whitefur, however, you can actually name them differently, like name ginger cat Fireclaw or gray cat Stonestripe. That is what you can name your cats based on their appearance. Now, let's take a look at other things you can name your cats after: Attributes - Brave-, Wild-, Sweet-, Sharp-... Body parts - -tail, -heart, -foot, -claw, -fur, -eye Plants and animals - Birch-, Holly-, Hawk-, Tiger-, Flower- Nature - Cloud-, Sand-, -stream, Stone-, Moon- Phenomena - Fire-, Mist-, Night-, Storm- Action - Pounce-, Running-, -leap, -step You can also name cats after other cats. For example, if a kit's father was called Foxstorm, and he dies, maybe his mate can name a kit Foxkit after him. Canon examples are Cinderheart (named after Cinderpelt), Hollytuft (named after Hollyleaf), Sorrelstripe (named after Sorreltail) and Fernsong (named after Ferncloud), Leafpool (named after Leafstar and possibly Spottedleaf), et cetera et cetera! There is way more. You can also name your cat after something that happened when they were born. For example, you can name a cat Crescentmoon if the cat was born at... well.. crescent moon. Canon examples is Stormkit/Crookedstar (named after him being born in a storm). Now, let's take a look at what NOT to do. Do not start your cat's name with Star- or Spirit-. Okay, look, I guess it's okay to name a cat Moon- since it was used before, and maybe I would ignore naming a cat Star- since it's nature but... Spirit- or Soul-... Just no. That is too odd. Also, I guess you can name your cat -spirit but please don't use it too often. Now, OOC names. Do not name a black tabby cat Goldenspots. Same goes the other way round - you don't want to name a sweet golden she-cat Ravenclaw. Now you could argue that Tawnyspots is a gray tabby, but he was recently confirmed to have pale brown spots on his belly. Another thing - do not name your cat something like Phatomheart or Ghostshade. Cats don't know ghosts or phantoms. Also don't name your cat Hammerthump or Knifecut. Don't name your cat Winterbreeze or Autumnleaf, as cats don't know human words for seasons. Also, don't name your cat an odd name like Laurashine or Miaclaw unless your cat is a modern SkyClan cat. The last factor is, don't name your cat name something like Blossomshine or Petallight. Those are straight up names for Mary Sues (we will get to that later).